BUYERS · THE TIMING QUESTION

Should you buy now, or wait?

Almost every agent answers this the same way. I'd rather give you the four situations where waiting is genuinely the right call — and let you check whether you're in one of them.

The house always wins. Make sure it's yours.

You’re asking the wrong question

Most people frame this as market timing. Have prices bottomed? Will rates fall? Should I wait six months?

Nobody knows. Not me, not your mortgage broker, not your uncle, or the economist on the news. I spent years running games where the odds were fixed and published, and even there people convinced themselves they could read patterns that weren't real.

Housing is messier than that, and anyone who tells you they know where prices go next is just guessing.

The question that actually has an answer is about you, not the market. Can you carry it? Will you stay long enough? Is your income stable? Those are knowable, and they determine the outcome far more reliably than whether you bought in March or September.

So here are the four situations where I'd tell you to wait. Not vague caution — specific conditions with numbers attached. If you're in one of them, waiting isn't fear. It's arithmetic.

Four reasons to wait

01.
You might move within 3 years

The single most common reason buying goes wrong — and the easiest to check.

The math

Selling costs roughly 5% of the price in commission, legal fees and adjustments. On a $600,000 condo that's about $30,000. In your first three years, the equity you've built is mostly smaller than that — so you'd sell at a loss even if prices never moved.

Early mortgage payments are overwhelmingly interest. On a typical five-year picture you might build $40,000 to $65,000 in equity, but the first two years produce a fraction of that. Combine slow equity with fixed exit costs and short holds are structurally unprofitable.

Three years is the rough floor. Five is where it starts working properly. That's not a market opinion — it holds in a flat market, a rising one, and a falling one.

What to do instead

Be honest about the next three years. A job that might relocate you, a relationship that's unsettled, a graduate program, a visa situation, a possible move closer to family. If any of those are live, rent through the uncertainty. The flexibility is worth more than the equity you'd forgo.

02.
Buying leaves you with no cushion

The one I push hardest on, because it turns ordinary problems into emergencies.

The rule

After closing, keep three to six months of full carrying costs liquid. Full means mortgage, condo fees, property tax, insurance and utilities — not just the mortgage payment. If closing empties your savings, you've bought a home with no margin for error. And condo ownership generates errors: a special assessment for a garage membrane, a fee increase after the developer's first-year budget expires, a furnace, a few months between jobs. Each of those is manageable with a reserve and a crisis without one. This is also why the gap between your maximum approval and a comfortable purchase price matters. Buying at your ceiling and buying with no reserve are usually the same decision wearing different clothes.

What to do instead

Lower the target price rather than delaying indefinitely. A cushion is often reachable by shopping $75,000 cheaper, not by saving for another two years. Run your qualification numbers and look at the comfortable figure, not the maximum.

03. Your income isn't stable yet

A mortgage is a fixed obligation. Rent isn't, and that asymmetry matters more than people expect.

Why this one is different

If your circumstances change, rent can be reduced. You move somewhere cheaper, you take a roommate, you leave the city. It's disruptive, but it's available, and it takes sixty days notice.

A mortgage offers none of that. The payment is the payment. Your options are to keep paying it or to sell — and selling under pressure means accepting whatever the market gives you that month.

Forced sales are how people actually lose money in real estate. Not bad timing on the way in. Bad timing on the way out, forced on them.

Probation periods, recent job changes, commission-heavy income, contract work, an industry going through layoffs, or a business in its first two years — all reasons to wait until the ground is firmer. This is also, incidentally, what lenders are assessing, so instability often shows up as a smaller approval anyway.

What to do instead

Give it time and use it. Build the reserve, clear consumer debt, and let your employment history lengthen — all three improve what you qualify for. Twelve months of stability can be worth more to your approval than twelve months of saving.

You're in a rent-controlled unit well below market

04. Your rent is well below market

The reason to wait that almost no agent will mention, because it argues against the sale.

What you'd be giving up

If you're paying significantly below market in a unit covered by Ontario's rent control rules, you're holding something genuinely valuable.

A tenant paying $1,600 in a unit that would list at $2,300 is effectively receiving $8,400 a year — and that advantage grows. Leaving it isn't a neutral act; it's giving up an asset.

One important caveat: Ontario's rent control only covers units first occupied before November 15, 2018. Newer buildings are exempt from the annual guideline, which means increases on those units aren't capped the same way.

And the protection ends when you move. Whatever you're paying now, your next rental is at market. That's the honest counterweight: this advantage is real but it isn't portable.

What to do instead

Stay, and convert the discount into a down payment. Bank the difference between what you pay and what the unit would rent for — in an FHSA, where it's also tax-deductible. A below-market rental you're actively saving from is one of the strongest positions a future buyer can be in.

None of the above applies?

Then the case for buying is reasonable — and stronger than it's been in a while.

The signals that say buy now.

✓ You'll be there five years or more

Time is what converts a mortgage from an expensive way to live into a worthwhile one. Everything else is secondary.

✓ Your break-even number is low

If prices only need to rise 1–2% a year for buying to beat renting, you're not making an aggressive bet. Check yours.

✓ You qualify for the rebate stack

The programs available to first-time buyers now didn't exist two years ago. On new construction under $1M they're worth real money.

✓ Your rent keeps climbing

A mortgage payment is largely fixed. Rent isn't. That gap compounds every year you wait, in the opposite direction to the one you'd like.

What waiting actually costs

Waiting isn't free, and the case for it isn't automatic.

✖ Every month you rent is a month of building nothing.

✖ If prices rise while you save, you're chasing a moving target — and historically, the gap has widened faster than most people can save.

✖ Rates could fall, which helps you, or rise, which doesn't.

✖ The rebate programs available now are policy, not permanence; they could be narrowed or removed.

Waiting is the right call when it fixes something specific. Building a reserve, clearing a car loan, getting past probation, settling into a new city. It's the wrong call when it's just deferring a decision you're nervous about, because that version has no end date and costs you rent the whole time.

General information, not financial advice. Rent control rules, rebate programs, mortgage regulations and market conditions change, and none of this accounts for your specific circumstances. Confirm your position with a licensed mortgage professional, an accountant, and a real estate lawyer before making decisions.

BUYERS FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Common Questions I Get

Direct answers to the questions I Hear every day from buyers - so you can make a confident, informed decision.

Q. Will I regret buying?

ANSWER

Some people do. In my experience it's almost always one of three things:

They stretched too far and the payments took over their life
They moved within three years and selling costs erased the equity
They didn't ensure they were protected and inherited someone else's problem

All three are avoidable, and I screen for all three before you make an offer. What I can't protect you from is the market — nobody can, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling.

What I notice is that the people who regret buying almost never regret the property. They regret the payment. Which is why I push harder on the reserve question than on anything else.

Q. What if the market drops right after I buy?

ANSWER

It might. If prices fall 10% on a $700,000 condo, that's $70,000 on paper.

That loss is only real if you sell. Over a five-year horizon you're exposed to the price in year five, not next year.

The risk isn't buying at the wrong price. It's buying at a price you can't afford to hold.

Someone who can comfortably carry the payment through a downturn doesn't lose. Someone who stretched and gets forced to sell in year two does. Which is the variable you control — and the one worth stress-testing before you buy rather than after.

Q. Am I being sold to right now?

ANSWER

Of course! This is a real estate agent’s page after all… but I’m all about education.

You can see 3 properties or see 30. I'm not keeping score.
Don't like the property? We walk away.
Think it's overpriced? I'll show you the comparable sales.
Want to wait six months? No problem.
Want to know exactly how I'm paid? I'll explain it before you sign anything.
Want to offer less than I recommend? It's your money. We'll discuss the strategy and execute your decision.

I don't get to decide when you buy. You do.

I would never break your trust me in me and our relationship—I want to help you with your real estate needs for the next 30 years and I wouldn’t jeopardize that for a single sale.